Four Minute Warning
by pixeltrixxi
Summary: HPDM Slash, slight. Harry sacrifices his own life to kill Voldemort and attempt to save others' lives. Songfic, Flashbacks.


Four Minute Warning

**Four minutes left to go, is this the end, then?  
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.  
Everybody wants to know what should we do?  
The official story is a four minute warning.**

Harry opened his eyes slightly. He couldn't remember much – his memory was a bit fogged of the earlier actions. He couldn't move and it was terribly painful to even move his facial expressions. He smelt of blood and death, a reek that would probably follow his body forever. He could hear shouts and see flashes of red and green prominently. He wondered how long he'd been laying there on the cold soggy earth, how long this battle had been going on for...

He was in a great amount of uncontrollable pain – he couldn't move, but it hurt even more to stay where he was. His whole body felt like it was on fire and he had stabbing pains all over at the same time. Well at least he got his lifelong prophecy fulfilled – kill Voldemort once and for all. He guessed it didn't really matter after that. The evil facing the world had been banished by the only person possible who had the power.

If the inevitable came tonight, people would forget eventually. He would become a name in history, that's all.

That's all.

3 ------

_Harry stood at the front of the crowd of members of the order and some students in their sixth and seventh year at Hogwarts. He pretended to be brave in front of everyone else, to set an example. But deep down he was even more terrified than any of them could be. He was terrified of the thought of not defeating Voldemort, terrified of loosing his friends to the Death Eaters, terrified of dying._

_Especially dying._

_All of his friends talked amongst themselves, possibly saying their goodbyes. Harry wanted so much to say goodbye, but he was afraid he wouldn't stay strong enough. And if he wasn't there to be strong and supportive – who would?_

_He looked around the people in the room, and sighed. So much ahead of them, so much they could achieve...and they were heading into something some of them would never return back from, and they knew it. They all had the choice to be there tonight; Harry didn't. He had a responsibility to be there. Without him all of their plans would fail, Voldemort would take over the world and torture all muggles, muggle-lovers, half-bloods, and possibly kill out all human existence eventually._

_He looked up at the dark midnight sky. It wouldn't be long until they were all out there, fighting for their lives. It was a beautiful night, all the stars visible and gleaming, deceiving the situation at hand. The grass he stood on was slightly damp, the trees were tall and towering. He closed his eyes and opened them up again. Never before had he noticed so many of the little things. Like how the bird in the tree was preparing it's nest for it's family. That the wind was blowing with a slight soothing 'woo'. That the bench on this path was slightly lopsided; but not noticeably so._

_He was seeing the world through a dying man's eyes._

_As if feeling his sombre mood, Draco walked up behind him and put a welcoming hand on his shoulder. Harry turned slowly, facing his friend of two years. He looked at Draco's eyes, for the first time noticing that his gray eyes were actually speckled with electric blue hues. That his hair was not just a blond, but a silvery blond._

"_I'm scared, too."_

_Three simple words with a humongous meaning. Draco was scared, too. It meant that he wasn't the only one hiding his feelings from the others._

_Harry noticed as Draco's mask dropped as he said this. His expression wasn't his usual unreadable one; he could see deeper into the blond's mind. His face flitted between scared, worried, angry, regretful and acceptance. Harry noticed how Draco was even paler than usual._

_Harry noticed a lot of things._

"_Harry...just promise me something?"_

_Harry stopped thinking and started listening to the gray eyes with specks of electric blue. "Yeah?" he said softly._

"_Don't leave me. Please." _

_It was a quiet final plead from Draco. And Harry knew what it meant, even though it could've had so many meanings. _

"_Promise me, Harry."_

_Harry hesitated for a second. He didn't want to make any promises and break them – it wouldn't be right. But it was a final thing that Draco was asking for. Hope; a flash of light in the dark._

"_I promise."_

_Draco's body sagged with relief. "Good."_

3 ------

**Sasha stands in his yellow cafe,  
"Yes the heart of the city is here, so he tells me".  
Sitting on his red leather sofa, he's rolling another,  
"Man, I'll see you, when I see ya"  
Polly is said to be the next big thing,  
In her high heel boots and her two inch earrings.  
Heart of glass, Blondie sings in her ear,   
"You're a rock queen, honey, and we all hear you!"**

_Harry sat down at the reserved table which already had Draco seated. He had an upset look on his face, as if he was devastated. He didn't bother to smile or anything when Harry sat down._

"_Why?" Was all he asked. And he sounded so small and little when he said it, it made Harry's heart break._

_Harry couldn't help but be confused – what on earth could he have possibly have done to make Draco like this?_

"_Hermione told me what you agreed to doing last night, Harry." Harry stilled. Of course. He should've told Draco himself first. "Why, Harry? Why sign your life off as simply as that?"_

"_I'm sorry Draco. It has to be done, and I'm the only one who can do it. I'm sorry," he whispered. He lowered his hand over Draco's, but he snatched it straight back._

"_I can't believe you!" He said angrily, then his face cracked. "I can't believe you," he said quietly, quickly shedding tears from his eyes._

"_I'm sorry Draco," he said, standing up and enveloping Draco into a hug. "I'm doing this to save your life, Hermione's life, everyone's lives..."_

_Draco sobbed a little harder, shaking uncontrollably in Harry's arms. Harry rocked him steadily backwards and forwards, making soothing noises._

"_Why do you care so much anyway, Draco?"_

_Draco looked up at Harry with a strange look on his face, his eyes swollen and red. "I n-need a reason?" he sniffed._

"_No! Of course not – I guess I was just...yeah."_

_Draco got out his handkerchief and blew his nose silently. "Because I...I- we're such good friends," he finished lamely._

_Harry's heart sunk slightly as he looked at the blond. He nodded to himself, then nodded again; this was why he'd done it. Because he had no-one to live for, not like other people who were fighting. They had people to fight for, people to die for. But Harry didn't. And it would be selfish to expect anyone else to do this job when Harry had nothing to live for after._

_Tomorrow, everyone's enemy should be defeated. And maybe Harry along the way._

_But he didn't mind._

3 ------

**Three minutes left to go, is this the end, then?  
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.  
Everybody wants to know what should we do?  
The official story is a four minute warning.**

Harry looked up to the clear night sky and sighed. Was he dying? It was hard to tell when you didn't know what was happening around you...

Or maybe he was dead. Maybe this was what it was like to be dead.

Moments slowed down in his mind and he took in all of the sounds and smells that surrounded him; the death. What possibly made it worse was how how couldn't even escape that. What could be his last moments alive were being spent listen to people die, unable to move and the indistinguishable smell of death that lingered up his nose, almost teasing him in a way.

Why was it that people were still fighting? Why didn't people realize that Voldemort was dead, gone, vanished? He was never going to come back.

Whilst the seconds past Harry couldn't help but think what a waste of his breath had been when he agreed to sacrifice himself. The point of it all was to save the others, not for them to carry on dying.

It will have all been in vain.

He carried on looking up at the stars, remembering them, counting them. He tried with all of his will to focus on the stars and the beautiful clear night sky and nothing else. But Harry's thoughts kept drifting away...and it was driving him insane. He wanted to do so much, say so much before he died. He wanted to say goodbye to his friends one last time...

For the first time in five years, Harry broke down and cried.

But even that hurt.

3 ------

**Lucy had a hard time with love,**

**But love recently chose the right time for Lucy,**

**Loving when you know it's the final time,**

**She holds time in her own mind.**

**Yeah, Jimmy's is a local for Micheal,**

**A Guinness in one hand, in the other a fable, able,**

**I once asked, 'are you a lonely man?',**

**His reply was non-committal,**

**'I am what I am, man'**

_Draco and Harry were sat by the lake, Harry's head in Draco's lap. Over the year they had been friends, they had grown unbelievably close and had never failed to amaze everyone who thought they weren't going to last two minutes as friends. As Ron and Hermione grew closer, Harry had seemed to be growing more distant from them and closer to Draco. Not that they weren't still his best friends, it just seemed that Draco was his _best _best friend. They became inseparable and now here they were, in positions of lovers but they were only friends._

_Harry closed his eyes as he felt Draco run his hands through his hair. He loved it when Draco did that. It always did seem to calm him whenever he was thinking heavily or was distraught._

_Harry often wondered if they'd still be good friends when they left school. If he left school. If he lived._

_Whenever Harry mentioned this to Draco, he'd always gotten upset and moody when Harry mentioned about himself dying, then always seemed to change the subject as wear an unreadable mask for the rest of the day. So Harry never asked again._

_He had always hated the idea of dying; he'd always wanted to be one of the people that lived to their older ages and died of natural causes. But with the prophecy...that probably wouldn't happen. He'd told Draco about the prophecy once, and Draco had just huffed and told him you didn't always need to fulfill prophecy._

_If only, Draco. If only, he always felt like saying back. But he stayed silent until the blond changed the topic once again._

_When hot lips descend on his own, Harry freezes for a second and his eyes shoot open. Draco, his best friend, was kissing him on the lips, and Harry didn't know what to think. Except that when Draco moved his tongue over his lip like that he felt good. Extremely good. And then Harry's mouth opens automatically and he's kissing Draco back and it all gets into a tangle of limbs. He's stopped thinking, he's stopped anything that wasn't related to this kiss._

_And when he draws back and sighs, he realizes who he's kissing. And then he realizes that he's much less a boy, and that he isn't gay. He's straight. His eyes widened once more and he pushed the blond back, scrambling off him lap and running for his life._

_The rest of the school wondered why Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were avoiding each other over the next few days..._

3 ------

**Two minutes left to go, is this the end, then?  
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.  
Everybody wants to know what should we do?  
The official story is a four minute warning.**

Harry is still staring at the stars when he notices a flash a dark bushy hair run past him; Hermione. He didn't know what exactly to feel – happiness that she was still alive and apparently still injured, or worry that if one of his best friends couldn't even notice it was him laying across the ground, then he had better seriously start worrying for his life.

Harry had mixed emotions at the minute. He was convinced he was going to die, but at the same time, hoped that someone would spot that there was someone alive there, even if he wasn't able to move. Harry wondered for the hundredth time if this was his last hour, last minute, last second alive. It wasn't too hard to convince himself it was, as the pain flaring through his body was still unbearably uncomfortable. He wished someone could spot him, whether it was a Death Eater to finish him off and end him pain, or one of his friends to get him healed, if he could be.

He didn't know what to do. So he carried on staring at the stars.

3 -------

**Cry, laugh, feel love, these high moments,**

**And these are your four minutes,**

**(Counting down, four minutes, it's a sound)**

_Harry stayed silently still in the Infirmary bed at Hogwarts, his eyes closed even though he was awake. It was early morning hours, complete darkness in the Infirmary and should've been empty except for him._

_He'd ended up in there once again as he'd fallen off his broomstick in the middle of a Quidditch match, but catching the snitch whilst doing so. Nearly dying whilst winning the game._

_Apparently Madam Pomfrey had healed all of his bones, but he still had to stay in a couple of nights as he couldn't fully walk properly and still felt more than a little bruised from the experience._

_But here he was, faking sleep in the infirmary because Draco had sneaked in to see him. God knows why he was faking, but he carried on anyway. He listened as Draco explained quietly to what he thought was a sleeping Harry about how worried he was when he saw Harry fall off his broom and quickly performed a cushioning spell on the ground. He'd explained about how, for a moment, he thought Harry was going to die, and how devastated he was. Harry just listened on intently in silence, still forging sleep. Harry smiled slightly when Draco held his hand for a while, then stood up and said, "I'd better get going now, so I'll see you when you get out..."_

_Then he bent over Harry's bed and gently kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, Harry..."_

_Something inside Harry clenched tightly and he soared when Draco had left, and he didn't even know why. He was just happy._

_He was quite pleased that even though they'd only been friends a few weeks, Draco still came in to see him for a few hours, probably completely missing out on his sleep because of it._

_That night Harry slept soundly with a wide smile on his face._

_ 3 ------_

**The final story is one of me,**

**Who with four minutes left has used up three,**

**I think of you, I think of me,**

**Then I think of nothing, it's the end you see, yeah!**

Harry smiled sadly to himself. His life was slowly fading from him, he could feel it. There was probably no chance he would get healed by now. It was too late.

He wondered where Draco was. Or Ron. Or any of his friends. He wouldn't mind seeing one or two of them at least, especially in his last moments.

Time seemed to go faster, and Harry could hear the shouts and smell the dead. It wasn't the pleasantest thing to die to, but it was going to be his. He would die saving many people, at least...

**One minute left to go, is this the end, then?  
Message on your stereo, four minute warning.  
Everybody wants to know what should we do?  
The official story is a four minute warning.**

All of a sudden Draco's face loomed over his. His could recognize his silvery blond hair, even in the dark and the dirt that covered it. His gray eyes speckled with blue were blaring; they could've created a fire. A worried frown tugged at his mouth. He lifted a pale hand darkened with dried blood and dirt and stroked Harry's cheek. "Harry..."

Harry had never felt so helpless under Draco's gaze. He opened his lips to speak, but even that hurt. But he was determined, if these were his last moments...

"Draco," he managed to croak out.

Draco smiled a little, even though it wasn't one that lit up his eyes. "It's alright Harry, don't try to speak. If you want to speak, just try and move your lips and I'll lip read, okay? You have a nasty curse on you at the moment, and I don't doubt for a moment it's painful," Draco's voice was wavering slightly, as if he was about to cry.

Harry nodded slightly. Well, at least Draco had some idea of what Harry was going through.

"I have a way to help you, Harry. It should work. And if it doesn't...I just want to do something first."

Harry mouthed 'okay' slowly to show he understood. He was wondering whether he should mouth it again because Draco was still staring at his lips a few seconds later. But he slowly lowered his face and kissed Harry, slowly, sweetly and full of passion. It may have only last a few seconds, but Harry thought he may at least die a happy man.

**What would you do, yeah,**

**With a four minute warning, a four minute warning...**

Harry watched as Draco mumbled a few things under his breath and watched as Draco fainted and then his world turned to black.

**I'm fading away, I'm fading away, if anybody wants to know...**

Harry once again wakes up from the familiar dream, panting, crying and sweating. He looks to the empty place next to him on his bed, and wishes once again that Draco could be alive to be here with him.

But the ghost form of Draco always hides in the cupboard so Harry can't see him. He has watched his loved one sleep like this for five years now, not being able to offer anything, except an eye to make sure he's okay in the end. He doesn't want to show himself in case Harry gets upset...So he once again sits down by the bedside and watches as Harry once again tries to get into a dreamless sleep.

But Harry can't do that very often, because as he dream keeps reminding him, he never did get the chance to tell Draco he loved him.

Fin


End file.
